European universities have been responsible for 10% of all patent applications filed at the EPO from within Europe. The growing role that universities play in patenting and commercialising inventions was revealed in a study published by the EPO’s Observatory on Patents and Technology, in collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, which was based on data from over 1200 universities over twenty years.
Accompanying the study, the EPO’s free Deep Tech Finder (DTF) now includes 900 European universities with pending and granted European patent applications. The DTF makes it easier to filter starts ups by growth stage, industry, the technical field as well as enabling searches by names, universities and investors.
European universities are proving to be key contributors to the innovation landscape bridging the the gap between academia and industry.
